10 sculptures that will leave you yearning for snow

If you're like most people, you can barely create a snowman — well, not a recognizable one, at least. But some talented sculptors are so good at manipulating this icy medium that international competitions are held during the winter around the world. By far the most famous festival is the International Snow Sculpture Art Expo in Harbin, China, which takes place every December or January. There are also competitions in Canada and Japan, where snowfall is frequent and plentiful.

Milky white and smooth as glass, snow sculptures resemble traditional marble works of art, but the scale is much different. Like sand sculptures, these artistic feats are temporary but massive, sometimes stretching for hundreds of feet to completely take over the winter landscape.

As with ice sculptures, artists chisel away at gathered hunks of snow, carefully keeping the pure white form of the delicate medium — any amount of dirt can take away from the overall experience.

So while we're in our yards making snow angels, sculptors create statuesque angels that tower over passerby. While we're rolling up humble balls of snow to create an Olaf-style snowman, sculptors spend days perfecting the realistic features of Buddha. As a tribute to these hardworking artists, here's a roundup of the most awe-inspiring snow sculptures from around the world:

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Photo: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

This sculpture at this year's Harbin International Snow Sculpture Art Expo in Sun Island Park in China had an elegant, windblown quality to it. If you look closely, you can see carefully-carved flowers and even a cosmic model. This sculpture spanned over 380 feet in width, reaching 85 feet into the air. A sight to behold!

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Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

From the trunks of the trees to the expressive dragon, this snow sculpture from the Harbin festival in 2005 lit up imaginations with its storytelling style.

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Photo: Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images

One of the world's largest snow sculptures to date, the "Dragon Castle" at the 2004 Asahikawa Winter Festival in Japan, was so sturdy that visitors could walk on it.

An all-time favorite, the wind blows through a woman's hair in this sculpture full of gravity-defying movement. It was one section of a 115-foot-tall, 650-foot-long sculpture called "Romantic Feelings" featured in the 2007 Harbin festival.